Disclaimer - I'm no expert on management. Let me limit my perspective to the only subset I know i.e. IT management either in development, support, infra, delivery ...
$ Some American author (P. Drucker?) said the #1 element of leadership is people motivation. Perhaps relevant in a start-up. I feel for a typical middle manager, even if half the team is non-productive her own performance would be unaffected.
$ Some (XXH) characterize manager's role as managing relationships. (I guess you could say the same about a salesman, a PM, a BA, an architect or almost any role.) I feel in most cases the #1 relationship to manage is the guy who determines the manager's own performance. Typically it's the boss, or perhaps the big customer being served if the manager is client-facing. As to the relationship with team members, actually not that important to him.
$ A senior manager (SCS) once told me "complete project on time within budget" is everything. Sounds like it requires the right people in the team. However, in that context I feel the more important relationship to manage might be the (internal) customer.
$ Many experienced managers jokingly say "my job is coordinator and dispatcher", since all the real work is done by the people below.
$ Chunmei liked to emphasize judgement or pan-duan-li as the key to management (key to any success). I like this view.
$ Some management science researchers found planning and esp. Execution is the key challenge of management. Good theory. In IT and esp. software development there's such a great deal of details to get right. Execution is about getting the important details right.
$ Managers are measured and ranked (by their superiors) according to their numbers. A self-preserving manager would be unwise to focus on anything else.
$ For a manager at a higher level, perhaps the really important job is to identify key individuals to run the sub-teams. But I feel it's /farfetched/ to put it as #1 task
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